You Make My Dreams Come True: The End

After our last dance, it was time to leave.. To walk away from the celebration I’d been pouring myself into for the last 15 months. A year later, I can actually say I truly only remember the good moments. There was certainly drama that occurred right at the end of our reception, but now, looking back, I’m finally able to look past that and focus on the joy I felt as I left with my new husband.

We made our way out to the parking lot and found our *beautiful* car. :) I know a lot of you said you’d be upset if your car was decorated, but our bridal party helped us clean most everything off before we drove away, so it really wasn’t a big deal. I loved it!

Due to a miscommunication, one of my bridesmaids had left with my bag for the night in her car. So we waited around a bit for her to bring it back, and then we were off to the hotel as newlyweds!

When we got there, David carried me across the threshold into our suite!

And that’s where the story ends, for you guys at least. ;) The next morning we had a nice breakfast and then headed to our new home together to meet our family who was there to have lunch and watch us open gifts. You can read about that here and our incredible honeymoon here, here, and here.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me through everything! I can’t even tell you how much it means that I had support and encouragement during our planning process, the sweetest comments on our wedding day, someone to vent to with everything that happened with our reception venue, and the nicest compliments on my recaps. I knew I’d be grateful to have a keepsake in this blog, but I never knew how grateful I’d be for all of my readers and followers!

My recaps are officially finished, but if you follow me on my newlywed blog you know I’m turning my etsy shop into something a bit bigger. It will now be Thoughtfully Designed: Custom Wedding Coordination & Keepsakes! I’m hiring someone to work on a blog/website for me, and I’m SO excited about what the future holds and that I’ll still be involved in the wedding world. I likely won’t be posting much here any more (after this week and our anniversary) but I’d love to leave my blog live so that other brides can draw inspiration from my projects and posts. I’d love for you all to keep in contact, so please follow The Luckiest in Love, and if you’re a bride, definitely keep a lookout there for my new business blog and website, which will be full of lovely pictures, wedding details, and inspiration!

Need to catch up?

 

We started on Thursday.

We decorated Friday morning.

We rehearsed.

We got pretty!

I put on my dress. 

We had our first look!

The guys had their turn.

The girls stole the show. 

We got some fun bridal party pictures. 

We took bride & groom portraits.

We took care of the formal portraits.

We took pictures with the kiddos.

We spent time hanging out waiting for the ceremony to start.

The grandparents and parents were seated.

It was finally time for the processional.

A step back to the playing of the slideshow.

The ceremony started. (Part 1)

The ceremony continued. (Part 2)

The ceremony ended. (Part 3)

We had a little fun with our recessional. 

I shared our ceremony details. 

We made our grand exit.

And then made our grand entrance!

We listened to touching toasts.

Then it was time to cut the cake.

We had our first dance!

We danced with our parents.

We did our bouquet and garter toss.

And the dollar dance!

Then it was finally party time!

Our sneaky bridal party decorated our getaway car.

I shared our reception details.

We had one special last dance.

Our First Year

I know I keep saying this, but I seriously cannot believe our anniversary is 2 days away. The last year has gone by in the blink of an eye, which makes me a little sad, but also tells me that it’s been a year full of memories and fun. Before getting married I think everyone wonders what the first year will be like – If you’re like me, you had people tell you that the first year was the hardest, or that it was terrible trying to figure the whole marriage thing out. You don’t know what to expect, so that uncertainty combined with those comments leads to some anxiety.

I remember the night before our wedding (if you haven’t read any of my wedding recaps – read this one! It’s seriously one of my favorites because of my sweet husband!) falling asleep praying I’d be a good wife, teammate, and best friend to David. I had no idea what the heck I was doing, but I knew that both of us were committing the rest of our lives to each other and promising to do anything in our power to make our marriage glorifying to God.

Honestly, I couldn’t be happier with how our first year turned out. I’m not saying we didn’t argue, didn’t disagree, or didn’t cry a few times out of frustration with each other. That definitely happened. But through all of that we learned about each other and about us as a married couple. We’d been together 6.5 years when we got married, but I feel like you learn so much more as a spouse. Marriage is a whole new level of commitment and closeness, and it teaches you so much.

I learned David constantly leaves his utensils/plates/cups in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher. I learned he needs warm water to brush his teeth. (Isn’t that odd?!) I learned he presses snooze about 30 times every morning. And I also learned more important things, like that he’s constantly helping his family/mom in some way – that he’ll drop absolutely anything to make sure he’s there for them. I learned that he’ll support me no matter what. I learned that he is the hardest working man I’ve ever known. While I probably ‘knew’ some of those things before, seeing it on a daily basis is totally different.

So much has happened in the last year. David supported me through nearly 3 months of unemployment following our wedding, and then celebrated with me when I found my first ‘big girl job.’ We experienced our first holiday season as our own family. We became a part of a new group of friends who we absolutely adore. We dealt with a ton and a half of family drama. We celebrated our first birthdays and holidays as husband and wife. We survived David finishing his last couple semesters of undergrad and his first real busy season as a public accountant. We grieved with a dear friend through the loss of her father/one of our mentors. We completed countless house projects. We hosted multiple family get-togethers and parties in our (now not so) new home. We watched friends get married, offered advice (are we even qualified?), and were even readers in one wedding. And through everything, we fell even more in love with each other.

I wouldn’t change a thing about our first year of marriage. Has it been easy? No, not really. But has it been worth it? MOST definitely. The one thing I’ve learned over and over again is that you must make your marriage a priority. It’s so easy to slip into a routine and end up living like roommates instead of husband and wife. You make time for everything else that’s important to you – Why wouldn’t you make time for working on the most important relationship in your life? Multiple people told me that marriage is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but also one of the most rewarding, and I couldn’t agree more.

I am SO blessed. And I’m so excited to see what the next year (and the many years after!) holds for us. Regardless of what happens, life is so good with David by my side. It’s so comforting to know I have a husband/best friend/teammate/partner/encourager for life.

I love you more than I ever thought was possible, babe! You’re my biggest blessing, and I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am for you, everything you do, and everything you are. Happy 1st anniversary!

Married ladies – What's the most important thing you learned your first year as a wife? I’m obviously still learning, and love advice!

Also, I have my last recap (tear!!) scheduled to go live later today. :( I can't believe I'm really finished. If you've missed any, be sure to catch up! 

Wedding ABC’s: Part 2

Here’s the rest of my post from Tuesday!

 

Music:

 

Our grandparents were seated to ‘Canon in D’ and our parents were seated to ‘Love Never Fails’ by Brandon Heath. Our bridal party walked down the aisle to the beginning of ‘Kisses and Cake’ by John Powell and I came in at 3:47 and it was absolutely perfect.

 

 

Two of our friends from high school were our musicians, and they sang ‘When I Say I Do’ by Matthew West and ‘The Luckiest’ by Ben Folds. Here’s a low-quality recording of the first song – He did SUCH a good job!

 

 

Our recessional was ‘You Make My Dreams Come True’ by Hall and Oates – Probably one of my favorite parts of the day!

 

 

And our first dance was to ‘our song,’ which is ‘True Companion’ by Marc Cohn.

 

Newlyweds:

 

This is a blog all about our newlywed life, so you guys are pretty much caught up on that! Here’s one of our first pictures as newlyweds!

 

 

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue:

 

My something old was my grandma’s rosary that was wrapped around my bouquet:

 

 

My something new was my dress, shoes, veil, basically everything.

 

My something borrowed was my slip and corset from my best friend.

 

My something blue was my bride underwear from Victoria’s Secret (on the left in the picture, although yes, I bought all 3) and my KU garter.

 

 

 

Photography:

 

We used Brandi Coldwell of Lola Jo Photo Design and would highly recommend her!

 

 

Question Popping:

 

It happened March 7, 2009! You can read the whole story here – It’s a good one! :)

 

 

 

Reception:

 

I absolutely loved our reception aside from our terrible experience with the venue – Boulevard Banquet Hall (now ‘The Boulevard’) in Wichita, KS – DON’T use them!! – and wish we could do it all over again! You can read all of my posts about it here. (And please do – there are so many pictures I want to share!)

 

 

 

Shoes:

 

I’m about 0.25” shorter than David, so I wore pink ballet flats!

 

 

 

Trash the Dress:

 

I love looking at pictures of trash the dress sessions, but I could never do it!

 

Unique:

 

Oh man, we had a bunch of unique details because I was determined to take the DIY route. You can see a lot of them here. Also, our ceremony was totally written by us, so it was unique, although I’ve since seen another bride use it. I recapped it word for word here, here, and here.

 

Vows:

 

We wrote our own vows, and I loved them. I said, ‘I, Laura, take you, David, to be my husband before God who bought us together and all of these witnesses. As we enter upon the privileges and joys of life’s most holy relationship and begin together the great adventure of building a Christian home, I will look to you as head of our home as I have looked to Christ as head of the church. I will follow you through all of life’s experiences as you follow God. I will love you in sickness as in health, in poverty as in wealth, in sorrow as in joy, and will be true to you by God’s grace, trusting in Him so long as we both shall live.’

 

 

Wedding Woes:

 

Again, our reception venue. You can read that whole story here. The only other one I can remember is both of my sisters being late to get ready/take pictures, which was pretty disappointing at the time. Overall, though, things went really well!

 

X-rated:

 

Uhhh, no.

 

Young Kids:

 

Our flower girls and ring bearer were my nieces and nephew. They are the cutest darn kids ever, biased or not. I love them to pieces!

 

 

{With our honorary flower girl, their baby sister!}

 

 

Zzzzz:

 

We were SO tired after everything was over! Luckily we had Sunday to recover a bit – We had lunch and opened gifts with our families and then took a nice long nap before packing and running errands for our honeymoon. Our flight left early Monday morning, and having that extra day was SO nice!

 

So there’s a quick recap of our wedding! If you’re interested in more details or have any questions, feel free to contact me or visit my wedding blog!

Wedding ABC’s: Part 1

David and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary on Sunday! It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost a year – Time has FLOWN by! I plan to finish my recaps (I only have one more!) before our actual anniversary on Sunday, but I’m posting this on my newlywed blog so I thought it’d be fun to post here too! I know most of you have probably seen these pictures and read posts on a lot of these topics, but it’s a fun little recap of the major details! My posts this week will be focused on our wedding and first year of marriage, so I’ll probably be double posting most of them. If you’re not following me over there yet, please do – I miss some of my Lucky in Love readers, and I post there much more frequently!

I know several different blogs have taken part in the wedding ABC’s posts, and I just love them. But, I’m going to split my post into two parts like Tara did since I’m a bit wordy and I like to include lots of details! Here we go.

Attending:

I think we had about 250-275 guests! We started dating our freshman year of high school, so we had lots of mutual friends and families from high school along with our own families, friends from childhood, and friends from college.

Bridesmaids:

I had a matron of honor (my sister), a maid of honor (my best friend), three bridesmaids, and a junior bridesmaid.

Cakes:

Our main cake was made by Cakes by Carrie, and the groom’s cake was made by Cheri’s Bakery and incorporated David’s love of the KU Jayhawks and reffing soccer!

Dress:

My dress was from David’s Bridal and I just loved it!

Engagement:

We were engaged for just over 15 months, which was nice since I was living 2 hours away and finishing my undergrad for 14 of those months. It seriously flew by!

Flowers:

All of our flowers were completely DIY! It was our biggest project, and I definitely couldn’t have done it without the help of my mom, SILs, and MIL. I LOVED how they all turned out, and have since done the flowers for a friend’s wedding!

Groomsmen:

David had two best men (both of his brothers), three groomsmen, and a junior groomsman.

Honeymoon:

We honeymooned at The Royal Cancun and absolutely LOVED it! We can’t wait to go back!

Invitations:

Our invitations were DIY too, from kits I actually found at TJ Maxx! I was so happy with how they turned out!

Justice of the Peace:

Our pastor was the father of one of my good friend’s from high school, and also someone who had known both David and I since we started dating. He did such a great job!

Keepsakes:

We have too many to count with all of the little details I made. Our main one would be our framed engagement picture with the photo mat that we had every sign instead of a guestbook. It’s on display in our dining room!

Ladies Night:

My bachelorette party/weekend was so much fun! My MOH did a fantastic job of planning it!

Part 2 with letters M-Z will be posted Thursday! :)

You Make My Dreams Come True: One Last Dance

The night was coming to a close, and the DJ totally surprised us by having all of our remaining guests join us on the dance floor and surround us in a big circle. We weren’t exactly sure what he was doing until he started playing ‘Then’ by Brad Paisley and told us to soak in minutes of our reception surrounded by people who love us.

 

Both of our photographers had already left, but BM S was there to capture it. I’m SO thankful, because this was honestly one of my favorite parts of the day and these pictures (although we’re dripping with sweat and my hair is frizzy) are some of my most treasured.

 

{I love everyone’s expressions in this!}

 

 

I love that you can see David’s brother and our SIL L with their arms around each other – I made the slideshow for their wedding a year before, and used ‘Then’ as the song for the pictures of them together. :)

 

 

And then David’s cousin yelled his congratulations and best wishes to us:

 

 

 

 

David sang to me the entire time. His face in this picture just makes me smile:

 

 

 

And with that, the song, and our reception that we’d poured so much into, was over. This next series of pictures is my absolute favorite:

 

 

 

 

Guys, I’m down to my last recap, and it’s a short one at that. I can’t believe it. I hope you’ll stick with me for the last one!

 

Need to catch up?

 

We started on Thursday.

We decorated Friday morning.

We rehearsed.

We got pretty!

I put on my dress. 

We had our first look!

The guys had their turn.

The girls stole the show. 

We got some fun bridal party pictures. 

We took bride & groom portraits.

We took care of the formal portraits.

We took pictures with the kiddos.

We spent time hanging out waiting for the ceremony to start.

The grandparents and parents were seated.

It was finally time for the processional.

A step back to the playing of the slideshow.

The ceremony started. (Part 1)

The ceremony continued. (Part 2)

The ceremony ended. (Part 3)

We had a little fun with our recessional. 

I shared our ceremony details. 

We made our grand exit.

And then made our grand entrance!

We listened to touching toasts.

Then it was time to cut the cake.

We had our first dance!

We danced with our parents.

We did our bouquet and garter toss.

And the dollar dance!

Then it was finally party time!

Our sneaky bridal party decorated our getaway car.

I shared our reception details.